Events

Lecture: Greening for urban wellbeing: A Sustainability Assessment of the Kökyar Protection Forest in NW China

Title of the event

Lecture: Greening for urban wellbeing: A Sustainability Assessment of the Kökyar Protection Forest in NW China

Series

CeMEAS Lecture Series: China's Green Transformation

Organizer

Centre for Modern East Asian Studies; AKI Göttingen

Speaker

Prof. Dr. Martin Welp

Speaker institution

Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development

Type of event

Vortrag

Category

Forschung

Registration required

Nein

Details

Abstract

China has made remarkable achievements in increasing forest and vegetation cover in large parts of the country. The Three-North Shelter Forest Program (also known as the great green wall) is one the famous national initiatives to hold back desertification. On the local level, the city of Aksu, located at the fringe of the Taklimakan desert in NW China, started already in the 1980s preparing and planting the so called Kökyar protection forest. It is an ecological engineering project with the intent of protecting the city from frequent dust and sand storms. The forest is well-known in China, has been awarded by the UN and is highlighted as an achievement of the so called “Kökyar-spirit”. We examined the shelterbelt from a broader perspective, embedding Kökyar to the wider context of social and environmental problems in South Xinjiang. Results affirm the economic sustainability of the shelterbelt, but see a mixed record for the social sphere as well as negative trade-offs when looking at the ecological dimensions — especially due high water consumption of the protection forest (a combination of poplar shelterbelts and orchards) and its impacts down-stream. There is a trade-off between artificial shelterbelt plantations for urban ecosystem services on the one hand side, and natural riparian forests and their biodiversity on the other hand side. In such agroforestry schemes systemic interactions need to be considered and locally adapted species favored.